In certain existing systems, it is the senders of radio messages who pay fees to the operator of the radio paging network in order to have messages transmitted to the portable pagers.
Payment on that basis restrains use of radio pager systems, since in many cases potential senders of radio messages decide not to send a message in order to avoid paying a fee to the network operator, even when the bearer of the pager would generally like to receive the message, and would probably be willing to pay said fee for that purpose.
In other existing systems, subscriptions are paid on behalf of radio pagers to enable them to receive either all radio messages addressed to them, or else certain specific information such as financial or sports information, for example.
The information received by the receiver can then be consulted by the user so long as the subscription period has not expired.
Nevertheless, that payment system requires users to pay a fixed subscription, even for periods during which they make little or no use of the facilities that give them access to the received information.
In an attempt to avoid the above drawbacks, document GB-2 263 568 proposes a one-way radio pager comprising:
the CPU being designed:
The user of such a pager must begin by "crediting" the validity data of the radio pager by purchasing in advance a certain number of units representing a certain sum of money, with this initial credit being diminished little by little as a function of the way in which the pager is used, said use subsequently being barred once the units have been consumed.
That method of operation nevertheless suffers from lack of flexibility insofar as: